I feel like a failure : Hopping Mad

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This is an issue that's been charging at me for a while.One day, I'd walked to the rabbits to find one of my bucks had squeezed his way in the commune doe cage and you can expect he had fun while he was there. I ended up with 4 does pregnant from him and I had 2 that I'd already bred. I've secured the cage better to avoid a repeat, but that gave me 37 babies..... There's a reason I normally never do more then 2 litters at the same time, my setup is made to handle that, not 6. This should've been a case of "welp time to cull at birth for reptile food" a sad reality of breeding animals some times when such accidents happen. Exept, for a couple months now there's been a pet shop supplier buying my rabbits. He said he'd buy em all, they'd be rdy for christmass afterall. So I didn't cull, went from my normal 1 bag of food for 10 days to 1 per 5. Tried my darndest to keep them and their cages clean but with 20 babies in 1 cage theres only so much you can do without a miracle. Eventually put the bigger ones in the community female cage to make the space managing a bit better. They started getting cleaner thanks to being in more resonable numbers. Then finally time comes for em to be sold...... The guy says "I'm not buying a single one".... ....... ...........I was floored, there's no way I can sell that many by myself, I'm busy trying to find a new job. I had to quit the last one and money is glaring at me. I still think I made the right call quitting but things wont be easy for a while. So here I am, having spend those resources to raise rabbits I cannot sell by myself. So ok, I'll take my losses, sell him the bigger ones at a lower price so he can raise em for meat insted. He agrees, we agree on a day to visit. Day comes, he doesnt... says "oh I though it was next week, I'll come next week for sure" I grind my teeth, keep spending food on em, they're starting to get dirtier again cause they are outgrowing my setup... next week comes, that day was yesterday and big woop, he didn't come again. I tried to call, tried to text, never got a reply.So now this is the end of the road, only 10 days before christmass, I havent been able to put the rabbits for sale myself cause they are too dirty to sell considering the situation and if I want any hope of finding at least some of em homes and sell enough to cover my loss they need to be sold NOW. So I was going to cull 20, make what little bite size meat bits they'd give me at 6 weeks old and work on the remaining 16, give em a bath and take pictures. I feel like a horrible being, but what else can I do? I was telling that to a friend and she said she'll take em to a animal shelter insted. I feel like an irresponsible prick sending them to a shelter. Like those stories of those irresponsible breeders who breed too many for money and then abandon the ones who didnt sell at shelters. Oh wait.... that still sounds like me right now . But I feel as horrible not giving them a chance because of some guy who lied to me. Butchering 2 or 3 unsold 4 month olds doesn't bother me, but who wants to butcher 20 6 weeks old lionhead rabbits here? Sigh...So I asked her to come spend the day with me, we selected the 17 I'm keeping, put the ones she's taking in a spare transport cage. She helped me bath and dry the bunnies I'm keeping and she'll bring the others to the shelter tomorrow. I tried cleaning the cages as best as I could but with the freezing temperature right now its a lost cause, so I put a blanket of hay throughout both baby cages. I'll be wasting hay every day, but it'll be the best way to deal with the current issue. Once there's a bit more warmth in the air I can try to clean them better. Tomorrow I'll be taking pictures and making the add to sell the ones I kept.I feel horrible, but I feel like keeping them all wouldve been a mistake, put off buyers from how dirty they and their living space were. Trust me when I say I tried to keep em as clean as possible every day, there was just too many. I was cornered and something had to be done or all of em would lose out. I'm confident in at least that much, but I still feel awful.As for the future? well since I had considered the baby army to be sold, I also curently have 20 2 week old babies. This one's my fault, I had forgotten I bred Barbie and Panda and went ahead and bred Lolita and Sia too. How did I forget? I have no clue, I deserve to be lashed. I remembered Barbie in time, but not Panda who sadly lost her whole litter in the community cage. So yeah I have them to think of too. This time I will be box culling before too long. But right now no other doe has been bred and I dont plan on breeding any for a few months. I love having baby bunnies around, they cheer me up, only reason why I breed every month normally, but I need to recover from this catastrophe.

is there a raptor or other wildlife rehabber/rescue near you? they are usually really grateful for frozen cull rabbits to feed their birds, and they don't have to be big. some large snake owners may buy some frozen too. there's always craigslist too. like you said, with christmas coming up there'll be plenty of people looking for bunnies.

the ones I kept I will sell on kijiji (our equivalent of craigslist) the others, my friend took with her not sure if she dropped em at the shelter yet or not. But I'm hoping, with christmass, hopefully they find homes soon and I havent overcrowded em too long. Some of em arent bad, there's a rly pretty single mane salamander, but since I had several salamander of better quality I was keeping already he went.I always keep my box culls in the freezer, last time the pet shop guy bought em, but Im not too keen in ever doing business with him again so they'll go on kijiji too in time so thats not an issue.If I had culled those 20 6 weeks old, I wouldve eaten em. Not much meat on em, but more than quail. My hearth is just in shambles, I am so ashamed that I got so overwhelmed.I didnt want to sell to pet shop suppliers, I ended up doing it cause my friend got in contact and he needed more bunnies then she had available. After that, since she's too busy with work I became his main contact and she'd bring her bunnies to me to sell for her. So while I'd like to say I've learned my lesson, I didnt seek this, it just happened to drop on my shoulders. What I need to learn to do more is say "no"

As soon as they start looking unhealthy in any way it's best to cut your losses in those situations. You'll only make a bad name for yourself presenting those to even repeat buyers you think know you generally produce quality animals and as you saw people tend to get more fickle and unpredictable when they are taking such rabbits off someone's hands. If you push to sell or rehome animals people will disappear instead of being more helpful. They don't see the other side and are quick to make assumptions with everyone taught to wash their hands of anyone who has animals that ended up not looking perfect. My last puppy was actually a situation where the breeder had crossed quality dogs but money plans didn't work out how they thought. It's actually kind of unfortunate they gave up right there because the whole litter is turning out quite nice but they didn't have the money to cover costs for proper care and sell them low until they proved their breeding so all they are known for is that they sold wormy, not vaccinated, too young puppies at a high price. People would label them a backyard breeder when circumstances made their nice animals look bad temporarily and ended an attempt at what could have been a quality line even with an unrecognized "breed" (alaskan husky) crossed in there.

Most just plain won't look farther than that so if you have something that also gets regularly used for food or feeders it seems to be better not to put it out there at all as soon as you see a problem starting unless you can correct it first. Even planned buyers will turn them down if they aren't willing to consider the situation and what is really a health issue versus a completely temporary problem that will result in perfectly fine animals quickly. That's not a lot of people these days with all the heat placed on breeders being perfect human beings. As much of an oxymoron as that is. Personally I wouldn't have risked a shelter knowing a bunch of animals came from me with how badly they blacklist anyone who surrenders an animal of any species here or have lots of various buyers involved unless I can make the remainder look perfect and meet somewhere.

My friend is the one who took em to the shelter, I wouldnt have gone, I would have culled them. So there is no reason for me to get blacklisted for it. They are healthy and parasite free, just dirty from overcrowding. I cleaned the ones I kept and today took pictures and posted the new add. Here's a few

Only one had rly bad mats I couldnt remove without shaving her, but I kinda want to keep her anyways. I put her at double the price of the others so I dont mind if people reject her either reasons. I know if she sells, I wont be happy about it cause I want to keep her x.x

I guess I don't mean for it to come off to cull them simply for appearances and if they can find good homes at this point then by all means sell them as you normally would. As you found when you try to get them by to an age they can be sold people end up not taking what are otherwise healthy animals. Then you just end up with declining conditions for them as costs and work add up. Even after they find homes or you move everyone to new manageable housing you have the ongoing time to get all the temporary measures back to ideal conditions so the whole area is clean again. It's one of those mistakes you aren't supposed to make that plenty of people end up stuck in at some point before they learn to act before one mistake becomes multiple. I did have a buck escape into a colony from my wire panel cages. The timing made it not a big deal though because I'd just setup the meat rabbit colonies without filling them beyond my starting does. Rescues and zoos have made that mistake with small animals. Go look up some of the famous guinea pig boar underestimations that led to dozens of bred females. One park has twice as many guinea pig pens now to make up for it. Organizations luckily tend to have plenty of people to help though where individuals get condemned. I've just found no one stops to really ask all the events that led to a mistake or care how many steps you are taking to deal with the problem and to prevent it ever again. The animals might go to more questionable homes than you would have gotten them otherwise and you end up losing sources of information or exchanges for quality animals in the future. If you are lucky that's the worst that happens...

The cages, I put hay, wich people will like better then the wire floor anyways. So the cages are very presentable. The babies I kept look perfectly fine as if this whole issue never happened (exept tiny, but tiny is my tiny I dont want her to sell anyways x.x) As for the pet supply guy, he never saw em. Said he'll take em, then cancelled the week before coming saying there was no demand right now. So it's not a matter of him seing their state or anything, it's him cancelling his order leaving me with a situation too big to manage without doing something drastic.As for the males, I've solved that issue too a while ago.